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Aparto - The Ultimate Apartment Resource

Yuan Wang
May 02, 2011

Aparto - The Ultimate Apartment Resource

Aparto is a property management service to facilitate transparent and efficient communication between apartment building managers and tenants.

This is a group project from the Designing Mobile Services course, taught by John Zimmerman and James Morris at the Carnegie Mellon Human-Computer Interaction Institute.

Yuan Wang

May 02, 2011
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  1. Designing Mobile Services 3 May 2, 2011 APARTO Have you

    ever... INTRODUCTION • Been late for a rent payment? • Had trouble with maintenance requests? • Struggled to find reliable information on the internet while looking for apartments?
  2. Designing Mobile Services 4 May 2, 2011 APARTO •  32%

    of apartment building owners are looking to improve customer service (Jan 2011) •  58% of apartment building owners worry about timely rent payment (Sept 2010) •  53% of apartment seekers are using the internet as their primary source of information during apartment hunting (Sept 2010) Source: J Turner Research, jturnerresearch.com The space INTRODUCTION
  3. Designing Mobile Services 5 May 2, 2011 APARTO A property

    management service to facilitate transparent and efficient communication between apartment building managers and tenants. And a platform for tenants to provide consistent customer feedback to managers and apartment seekers to help the apartment hunting process. Aparto is... INTRODUCTION
  4. Designing Mobile Services 6 May 2, 2011 APARTO is a

    service for tenants to share their voice. INTRODUCTION
  5. Designing Mobile Services 7 May 2, 2011 APARTO is a

    service for apartment seekers to get genuine, up-to-date reviews from real tenants. INTRODUCTION
  6. Designing Mobile Services 8 May 2, 2011 APARTO is a

    service for building managers to ensure transparent and effective management. INTRODUCTION
  7. Designing Mobile Services 9 May 2, 2011 APARTO is a

    service for real estate owners to stay more in touch with their properties. INTRODUCTION
  8. Designing Mobile Services 10 May 2, 2011 APARTO is a

    service for Maintenance crews to get real-time and accurate information about their responsibilities. INTRODUCTION
  9. Designing Mobile Services 12 May 2, 2011 APARTO Tenants •

    Transparent communication with the management • Better management service • Means of providing feedback to management Stakeholder Analysis The NEED
  10. Designing Mobile Services 13 May 2, 2011 APARTO Apartment Building

    Managers • Effective and speedy communication with the maintenance crew • Consistent customer feedback from tenants • Better management service Stakeholder Analysis The NEED
  11. Designing Mobile Services 14 May 2, 2011 APARTO Maintenance Workers

    • Efficient maintenance work • Appreciation for the work Stakeholder Analysis The NEED
  12. Designing Mobile Services 15 May 2, 2011 APARTO Real Estate

    Management Company Owners • Ability to see the voice of the tenants • Transparent information on the state of their properties • Better control over management Stakeholder Analysis The NEED
  13. Designing Mobile Services 16 May 2, 2011 APARTO Apartment Seekers

    • Unbiased and reliable information and reviews about apartments Stakeholder Analysis The NEED
  14. Designing Mobile Services 17 May 2, 2011 APARTO The NEED

    Tenant Apartment Seekers Value Diagram Maintenance Team Manager Owner Aparto Revenue Customer feedback performance measure Help manage tenants Control Status update/ Better service Better information A Access to Aparto A: • Rent payment • Maintenance request management • Feedback of apartment • Rating of apartment
  15. Designing Mobile Services 18 May 2, 2011 APARTO Territory Matrix

    Weak Management-Tenant Relations Strong Personalized Tenant Support No Workflow Support Workflow Support Mailed Payments Phone Calls CRMs (Customer Relationship Management Tools) Arbitrary Ratings & Reviews Sites Trusted Ratings & Reviews Sites Word of Mouth Property Management Tools Online Rent Payment Tools Concierge, Doorman “Person always on-site” Newsletters Personal Visits Tenant-run Co-ops Aparto The NEED
  16. Designing Mobile Services 19 May 2, 2011 APARTO By opening

    a channel of communication, Aparto will co-create value with tenants and building managers. We are rebundling the experience of living in an apartment and interacting with management. Aparto’s Goals tenants real estate owners maintenance apartment seekers managers The NEED
  17. Designing Mobile Services 21 May 2, 2011 APARTO Tenants Maintenance

    Workers Managers Owners Potential Tenants Aparto Cloud Google Maps Third Party Cloud Server/Web Server Messaging system SMS System Email system Billing system Review/Rating system Maintenance request manager Records manager Block Diagram TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY
  18. Designing Mobile Services 22 May 2, 2011 APARTO Resources Manpower

    • Front-end Developer, Smartphone Application Developer, Back-end Developer Software and Hardware • Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP (LAMP) • Amazon Web Service (Amazon EC2) TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY
  19. Designing Mobile Services 23 May 2, 2011 APARTO Development Plan

    Phase 1 • Back-end development • Most important features for partial users Phase 2 • Add remaining feature to all users Phase 3 • Compatibility and multi-platform TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY
  20. Designing Mobile Services 25 May 2, 2011 APARTO Apartment owners

    simple monthly subscription service & percentage of rent payment Aparto Revenue Flow $$$ FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
  21. Designing Mobile Services 26 May 2, 2011 APARTO Average units

    per apartment building: 100 According to apartmentratings.com, average rent in Pittsburgh for a 1-bedroom is $728, 2-bedroom is $847 Average rent per unit is: $800 And let’s say we get 100 buildings on board to use the system in a year... Our assumptions... FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
  22. Designing Mobile Services 27 May 2, 2011 APARTO We need:

    3 developers & 25 weeks. Development Time FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
  23. Designing Mobile Services 28 May 2, 2011 APARTO 1 full

    time developer, 2 part time developer, 1 part time UI designer, 1 sales person Cost: $171,000 Development Time FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY ONE TIME COST
  24. Designing Mobile Services 29 May 2, 2011 APARTO Database space

    at Amazon EC2, two servers Cost: $7,000 Infrastructure cost FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY ONE TIME COST
  25. Designing Mobile Services 30 May 2, 2011 APARTO $171,000 development

    labor cost + $7,000 infrastructure cost ----------------------------------------------------- $178,000 start-up cost Total Expenses FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
  26. Designing Mobile Services 31 May 2, 2011 APARTO Full time

    developer, full time sales manager, Amazon EC2, Merchant Account and transaction fee Cost: $137,420 Maintenance Cost FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY YEARLY
  27. Designing Mobile Services 32 May 2, 2011 APARTO Aparto Subscription

    cost: $1 per unit/month by the owner Rent Payments: 2% of all the rent payments Revenue FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
  28. Designing Mobile Services 33 May 2, 2011 APARTO Charge $1

    per unit per month, $50 minimum $1/unit per month x 100 units/building x 100 buildings x 12 months --------------------------------------- $120,000 / year Owners Subscribing Monthly PAYMENT 1 FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
  29. Designing Mobile Services 34 May 2, 2011 APARTO 2% of

    every rent transaction x 25% of Aparto Subscribers x $800 average rent per unit x 100 units x 100 buildings x 12 months --------------------------------------- $480,000 / year Paying for Rent Transaction PAYMENT 2 FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
  30. Designing Mobile Services 35 May 2, 2011 APARTO we’ll be

    making in first year $286,580 $600,000 yearly profits - $313,420 startup costs = FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
  31. Designing Mobile Services 36 May 2, 2011 APARTO we’ll be

    making in second year $472,580 $600,000 yearly profits - $137,420 Maintenance costs = FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
  32. Designing Mobile Services 37 May 2, 2011 APARTO $16,800 For

    each new apartment building in the Aparto network we will make: FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY
  33. Designing Mobile Services 39 May 2, 2011 APARTO • Improve

    interactions between building management and tenants • Helping tenants see their management is about serving them • Allow apartment seekers to find truthful, up-to-date reviews in one easy-to-reach location • Building managers already pay for mediocre software that does this; payment for this type of service would not be something new • Subscription service provides monthly revenue • Smart phones and web services are increasingly prevalent for consumers and businesses • Extend the functionality of management software to directly reach tenants • Improving transactions to be more transparent and secure • Providing “just-in-time” information for emergency and non-emergency situations Social Technology Economic A channel to facilitate transparent and effective communication between building managers and tenants, and provide a means of consistent customer feedback. CONCLUSION
  34. Designing Mobile Services 41 May 2, 2011 APARTO Thank you

    from Anubhuti Jain Molly Nix Yuan Wang Yebin Zhang